


Empty

by Eudore



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 12:59:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4877773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eudore/pseuds/Eudore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin had expected everything. Expected to get trampled, to be devoured, to get ripped apart, to be destroyed.<br/>He had expected everything.</p><p>Everything. But this.</p><p>(Chapter 72, spoilers ahead)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty

The question stayed unanswered for the rest of the day. It didn't fade when Levi slammed the door shut behind him. Didn't fade when they ate in silence together. Didn't fade when Levi came to him in that night. Behind every kiss and every touch lingered this one question.  
_Are you really coming with us?_  
The answer was always the same. _Yes_ , again and again _yes_. There is this one matter that moves you, even if every muscle, nerve and vessel craves for stop. Erwin never stopped, not a single second. And he paid for it. He lost his arm and -even worse and more painful- friends and fellows. Erwin never stopped not even when he started to fall. He stumbled on the day they took his father away and fell and fell and fell. Past friends and colleagues. He left them behind, no, he gave them away to satisfy this burning matter, that didn’t lapsed in thirty years. Levi lost his balance on the day he lost Farlan and Isabel and they fell side by side in the cold darkness underneath them. And now they were about to lose each other.  
Levi respected his decision, but he didn’t accept it. He turned his back without a word on Erwin in the moment they were done. Erwin let him. He watched silent how the light of the candle played with Levi’s dark hair. After a while he moved his hand to caress the ink-black strands.  
“I understand your anger”, he said soft into the silence and Levi tensed.  
“Of course you understand. You do always, but still you don’t change your mind. You are going to throw yourself to the titans.” His voice was very calm. “Please just shut up. I don’t want to think about it anymore until it happens.”  
Erwin took a deep breath before he embraced him and pressed his face into his neck. Levi took his hand and they kept silence for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

Erwin was ready. He knew that the odds were against him, but he felt no fear. Fear had been his loyal companion in all missions but not in his last one.  
He was ready to die for the chance to get the answers he always wanted. The answers his father searched for. Everything would end today, in one way or another.

 

* * *

 

 He had expected everything. Expected to get trampled, to be devoured, to get ripped apart, to be destroyed. He had expected everything.  
Everything. But this.  
He screamed when the gigantic fist, which wanted to grip him, grabbed Levi.

 

* * *

 

Nothing mattered anymore. The basement didn’t matter anymore. The answers he wanted for so long didn’t matter anymore.  
He sprinted past blood, bodies and ruins, before falling on his knees. The titan just dropped him. Levi’s storm grey eyes were empty.

 

* * *

 

Erwin lost his sense of time. Levi’s blood soaked his clothes and wetted his skin. Everything but his head and his right arm was comminuted.  
“Why?” Erwin pressed his face in his dark hair. “ _Why_?” There was no need for Levi to save him. There was no need for this. It should have been Erwin. Comminuted, between bodies and blood. He _was_ ready. Levi’s face was calm and white like snow.  
Erwin wanted to scream, cry, lash out, everything in the same moment. Instead he fell silent and just looked at Levi’s pale face like he did it so often before. He knew every feature of his face. His fingers caressed his white skin, his lips and closed his eyes. The storm disappeared and Erwin had only the blue sky above his head.  
He got up.

 

* * *

 

They had to break the door open, because Eren’s key disappeared in the chaos. Erwin didn’t even notice how many were missing. There was only silence in his chest.

 

* * *

 

The basement was empty. An empty shelf, a weathered table, a shattered chair. Empty.

 

* * *

 

Erwin did not remember how he returned to his office. He wanted to scream, cry, apologize, fall on his knees. Instead he became silent and numb. He did not get the answers he wanted for so long. He only lost.

 

* * *

 

Hanji talked to him and said again and again that it wasn’t his fault, but he knew better. He demanded to come with them and lost the only thing, the only person, who mattered now while protecting him. All for an empty basement.

 

* * *

 

He did not sleep. How should he. Instead he embosomed the pillow, which was Levi’s in the night before mission and stared at the empty side of the bed.

 

* * *

 

Levis countenance in his last moments haunted Erwin at night. It lingered under his eyelids, in his brain convolutions, in his stomach, in every fibre of his body and pulled him with its ugly crawls out of sleep. Eyes and mouth wide, a silent scream. How his lips suddenly compressed, when the titan squeezed his dirty hand. And then nothing. Again and again and again. Erwin woke up bathed in sweat. Dreams full of tightness and pain.  
It was his fault.

 

* * *

 

Hanji reminded him to eat. When they suggested putting fresh linen on the bed, something in him snapped. He pressed Levi’s pillow as firm as he could against his chest. They let him alone.

 

* * *

 

The answers he wanted for so long were found, but weeks to late. They overcame the titans and finally there was peace.  
Erwin should have felt relief or maybe even satisfaction.  
Instead he felt nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading.  
> This was my angsty little headcanon what could happen in the following chapters.  
> Let's hope the best for our two little dorks.  
> Please forgive me my mistakes, english is not my mother tongue.  
> I want to thank Eaven (http://eaven129.tumblr.com/) for her support. Do you like Dragon Age and Mass Effect? Then check out her marvelous art!  
> Feedback is appreciated :)
> 
> my tumblr: http://eudore-danae.tumblr.com/


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